You’ve probably all heard that Indian Prime Minister Modi ordered two of the most common high denomination bills (500 and 1,000 rupee) out of circulation and that they would no longer be legal tender after only a few days. India’s economy is, well, not modern. Most people do not have or use credit cards. Only […]

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. […]

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.

Steve adds:

Harris wants to know “what he would do without 28 days of health care”? I don’t know, Andy, what have tens of millions of Americans, including millions of children, done without access to quality health care for years? Why are you entitled to government-subsidized health care, but they’re not? What will those families do after you repeal the Affordable Care Act? Wait for tort reform to magically cover everyone?

What an embarrassment.

{{RD pauses}}

I’d laugh but I don’t think this is funny. I can just imagine someone like Harris expostulating loudly over the fact that some poor woman whose family is recently unemployed and can’t pay for COBRA couldn’t afford to pay the bill for the epidural she had during childbirth. It’s not funny that his 5 kids will not be covered until February. It’s not funny that he’s been sheltered from the reality of the probationary period that everyone I know has to suffer through. It’s not funny that some district in Maryland will be represented by a dolt. And it’s not funny that he will presumably learn nothing from this, given his party affiliation.

Amidst the sturm und drang that is the nascent Obama administration, pundits, analysts, talking heads, blogger boyz and other professional bullshitters are running amok, racing each other to see who can be first to bang his/her head into a brick wall trying to figure out just where the Spokesmodel-in-Chief is coming from, and exactly where he might think he’s going. Needless to say, none of them seem to have a freaking clue. Is he too tired, over his head, fiendishly Machiavellian, liberal, centrist, Socialist, Marxist, fascist, or, just, as Mickey Mouse allegedly said to the divorce court judge about Minnie, fucking Goofy?

The New York Times, in an interview aboard Air Force One, tried valiantly to pin the Teflon TelePrompTer Reader down about his overall philosophy of governance, to little avail:

Q.The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?

A. You know, let’s take a look at the budget – the answer would be no.

Q. Is there anything wrong with saying yes?

Obama then goes on to give a classic 4-paragraph, professorial ObAnswer that didn’t come anywhere near to answering the question.

Q.So to people who suggested that you are more liberal than you suggested on the campaign, you say, what?

A. I think it would be hard to argue, Jeff. We have delivered on every promise that we’ve made so far. We said that we would end the war in Iraq and we’ve put forward a responsible plan.

Q.In terms of spending.

Obama then goes on to give a classic 3-paragraph, professorial ObAnswer that didn’t come anywhere near to answering the question. Which of course, prompted the interviewer to again ask the president if he was a Socialist:

Q.Is there one word name for your philosophy? If you’re not a socialist, are you a liberal? Are you progressive? One word?

A. No, I’m not going to engage in that.

No wonder the pundits, analysts, talking heads, blogger boyz and other professional bullshitters are all having such a hard time sussing out where he’s coming from; they’re using yardsticks to measure water temperature. The only logical answer to the “where’s this guy coming from?” question is, “someplace only he knows.” He fits no known description, he is an Obacanacratist. He fully intends to “change” the “old ways of Washington,” just like he always said he would. What I can’t understand is why so many people find something so obvious, so hard to comprehend.

Until everybody, on both sides of the aisle, and down the middle, wraps their heads around the fact that he’s not a Democrat or Republican, Socialist, Marxist, or any other -can,” “-crat,” or “-ist” you can think of, they’ll never be able to answer the only pertinent question, which is not, “what’s he up to?” but, “are we going to let him get away with it?”

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am simply THRILLED with the liberal slant of Barack Obama’s economic policy. As you know, I’ve been a tad…put off, shall we say, by some of his nods in the conservative direction. You know, what with anti-choice CDS sufferer Tom Daschle being put in charge of things like HHS and health care reform, and that Rick Warren invocation brouhaha, and the whole Sanjay Gupta “I Lie About Our Health Care System On The Teevee” Surgeon General thing, and elevating anti-choice/anti-gay marriage Tim Kaine to the head of the DNC, and staying the course with Robert Gates…and that’s just in the past few weeks! I’ve hardly had time to freak out about the Middle East, Russia, Caroline Kennedy or the coming Depression, what with all this tsuris!

So, our President-Elect is on the socially conservative side, and well, he might not “end the war in Iraq” after all. But who cares? As we know, those issues are quite unimportant when you consider that Obama really knows how to fix the economy. I am sure he will seize this unique opportunity to shore up the ravaged institutions of FDR’s New Deal and begin to rebuild a strong middle class and fill in the Reaganite holes in the social safety net. After all, that’s what Democrats do!

Ahhhh, who the fuck am I kidding?

Did you read what he said today? Did you? I swear to the Giant Green Lizard, my liberal eyeballs were bleeding by the time I was finished. Misery loves company, so let’s take a closer look. We’ll skip all the Orwellian nonsense at the beginning about changing and believing, yada yada yada (wonder if the Groper, Jon Favreau, wrote it?).

Here’s what he says about health care reform:

To improve the quality of our health care while lowering its cost, we will make the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years all of America’s medical records are computerized. This will cut waste, eliminate red tape, and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests. But it just won’t save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system.

Um, huh? Is that it? Modernizing computer records? I’m sorry, but could he think ANY SMALLER? Do we really need to discuss the massive problems our health care system faces? And how will this cover the 47 million without health care now? Besides…is it me, or is this idea kind of, um, unoriginal?

In 2003, President Bush said he wanted most Americans’ medical records to be computerized within 10 years. The savings from moving away from paper could rise into the hundreds of millions a year, the president said. And electronic records can reduce medical errors, proponents said.

Could it get any worse? Oh, Yes, it can! The words of our Glorious Leader on education:

To give our children the chance to live out their dreams in a world that’s never been more competitive, we will equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges and public universities with 21st-century classrooms, labs and libraries. We’ll provide new computers, new technology, and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with kids in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future.

Chicago and Boston, huh? Gosh, wonder why he picked those areas out as examples. I’ll tell you something, the inner city schools in many other ares of the country need help too…but then again, Obama needs to keep his patrons in his home city and Uncle Teddy’s home city fat and happy!

Anywho, that stuff about new technology and the jobs of the future sounds kinda familiar. Where have I heard it before?

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 21, 2004

Fact Sheet: Jobs for the 21st Century

Presidential Action:

In his State of the Union Address, President Bush announced Jobs for the 21st Century — a comprehensive plan to better prepare workers for jobs in the new millennium by strengthening post-secondary education and job training and improving high school education. This plan includes over $500 million in new funding for education and job training programs.

(snip)

Improving High School Education: The President’s plan will also improve the quality of education at our Nation’s high schools and better prepare students for success in higher education and the job market — including $100 million to help striving readers and $120 million to improve math education.

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